[0681] Heroes
└ posted on Thursday, 7 May 2015, by Novil
- Sandra: We all know the worst mass murderers in history. But far too few people know the heroes who saved the most lives.
- Caption: Ignaz Semmelweis, Hungarian physician at the Vienna General Hospital, discovered in 1847 that the incidence of childbed fever could be drastically cut by the use of diligent hand disinfection.
- Physician: A gentleman’s hands are never dirty!
- Ignaz Semmelweis: I beg to differ.
- Caption: During the Massacre of Nanking in 1938, German businessman John Rabe established safety zones that sheltered over 200,000 Chinese citizens from the Japanese army.
- John Rabe: Would you let go for a moment? I need to go to the bathroom.
- Caption: Stanislav Petrov, lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, may have prevented a nuclear war in 1983 when he correctly identified the launch of five American nuclear missiles as a false alarm of the Soviet’s early warning system.
- Stanislav Petrov: No, no! These aren’t nuclear missiles! These are just weather balloons!
- Yury Votintsev: Hmm…
![[0681] Heroes](/comics/2015-05-07-0681-heroes.png "[0681] Heroes")
@ Paddy:
but he couldn’t mention all and everyone after all
@ Arklyte:
True that.
Hm, my previous comment seems to still be being under review; probably because it has links in it. Basically, I put a case forward for Edward Jenner, John Snow, Alexander Fleming, and Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim.
@Nestor
Yes, I too had to think about Chiune Sugihara, when reading about John Rabe and seeing comments mentioning Oskar Schindler.
Did you know the top 5 mass murderers alive today are free and more than half were released from jail despite everything they did?
@ Novil:
Sorry if I’m posting too much, but I think you have a great idea here.
Occasionally, as you gather such info, do a regular “Hero’s Post” and educate your readers about forgotten Hero’s of Humanity. Include both those whose action endanger themselves (like John Rabe and Miep Gies) and those that have done great things in their vocations, like:
Edward Jenner who developed the first smallpox vaccine
Louis Pasteur who furthered the medicine through his work in microbiology, and
Jonas Salk who developed the first polio vaccine.
the greatest of men are forever shadowed by the sins of the worst.
great example:
In 1943, 2nd Lt. Charlie Brown had flown a successful B-17 bombing run against a German munitions factory. But even though the bombing run was a success, the B-17 was hanging on for dear life, as it came under attack by enemy planes, which knocked out the plane’s oxygen, hydraulic and electrical systems, the number two and three engines, partially destroyed the number four engine, ripped out a part of the plane’s exterior, damaged the tail as well as one of the wings, plus 11 guns were incapacitated. To make matters worse, most of the crew was injured and the tail gunner was killed. Lt. Brown struggled mightily to return the plane to base, of which he had only partial control. Luftwaffe pilot, Franz Stigler, came across the bomber in his Bf-109. Only needing one more enemy kill to win the coveted Knight’s Cross, Stigler, instead, relented from downing the bomber, after seeing the terrified crew and bloodied Lt. Brown. Stigler later said that shooting down the plane would be akin to shooting at a man in a parachute, as his commanding officer preached honor in the skies. Stigler even escorted the bomber for some time, ensuring its safety and as he departed, he saluted Lt. Brown. Brown and Stigler met years later in a touching reunion. They both died six months apart from each other, in 2008. Brown was 87 and Stigler 92.
but due to all the evil the Nazis did most never new what this man did. in one night this German pilot risked his life (and knew it) risked his life THREE times in one night. first getting shot down but the bomber crew, second getting hit by his own country’s anti guns, and third and most important getting executed for being a traitor by Hitler’s SS. which would mean mostly likely death by torture and shot to death (and near the end of the war it did happen).
@ Lordfireice:
https://youtu.be/GV0tr2W8oSM
@ Marcin Fat Emo:
Why not 300 million, i.e. twice the whole then-USSR’s population?
You ignoramuses cannot into even elementary school math…
@ Constantine:
ok russian troll. youre the reason the world hates russia so much. there is history and theres alternate russian history
Or, there are those like Sergeant Alvin York in WW1 who was such a Good Shot that, after he killed a bunch of German Soldiers, the Other 132 Surrendered to him and his 7 fellow soldiers.
From Wikipedia:
He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, taking out 32 machine guns, killing 20 German soldiers, and capturing 132 others.
…
During the assault, six German soldiers in a trench near York charged him with fixed bayonets. York had fired all the rounds in his M1917 Enfield rifle,[22] but drew his .45 Colt automatic pistol[23] and shot all six soldiers before they could reach him.[24]
German First Lieutenant Paul Jürgen Vollmer, commander of the First Battalion, 120th Landwehr Infantry, emptied his pistol trying to kill York while he was contending with the machine guns. Failing to injure York, and seeing his mounting losses, he offered in English to surrender the unit to York, who accepted.
By the end of the engagement, York and his seven men marched 132 German prisoners back to the American lines.
His actions silenced the German machine guns and were responsible for enabling the 328th Infantry to renew its attack to capture the Decauville Railroad.
Coming out Alive when not One, Not 2 but 32 Machine guns are doing their best to Kill you and everyone with you is amazing.
In this case, he arguably saved the Lives of all 132 German Soldiers who Surrendered to him.
@ Arklyte:
Except Hitler was a bit on the side of “invade everything,” as was Stalin. Hirohito did not invade Manchuria, but his subordinates did it without permission (he still didn’t object, he ain’t scott-free on this one))
Marcin Fat Emo wrote:
News flash: the world does not hate Russia. Only neo-Nazis and brainwashed ignoramuses like you do, and you lot are not even remotely “the world”.
A mere suggestion to use critical thinking and looking up real facts makes you cringe – a typical sign of a cultist, and racial hatred is your cult.
@ Constantine:
With the Ukrainian crisis, Putin doesn’t do much to endear Russia to the rest of the western world, though – particularly the US and the EU.
And Stalin is responsible for enough death to his own people: his tactics in WW2 ammounted mostly to sending in wave after wave on conscript until the enemy ran out of bullets, with every victory payed heavily in Russian blood. And depending who you ask, his Gulags have cost more lives than the Nazi concentration camps. Nevermind his decision to just not pull back out of Eastern Europe, sparking a conflict of 44 years with several bloody skirmishes and proxy-wars. Sure, you can’t lay the full blame of the Cold War upon his shoulders, but he could’ve prevented much of it.
I think you forgot one important person: Henri Dunant. A Swiss businessman, he witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, 1859, and its massive, preventable death toll due to lacking hygene and medical aid on or near the battlefield. This inspired him to create a neutral organisation of doctors and medical staff for both military and civilian support: the International Red Cross. He was also vital in setting up the Geneva Convention, dealing with the treatment of casualties and prisoners of war.
@ Smilley:
@ Smilley:
“sending in wave after wave on conscript until the enemy ran out of bullets”?
I guess germans had a REALLY big trouble with ammunition then:) Don’t you find it suprising that Soviet Unionhaven’t lost if it was fighting with Zerg Rush? Not to mention ran out of population? Or that most… effective Allied fighter pilot, tank commander and sniper were part of soviet army? It also surely had terrible equipement, right? For example fighters: Marcel Albert would have surely said so… or not? And surely our forces were immune to cold, starvation and treated greatly as prisoners of war. We only died in Zerg Rushes after all.
Do I need to use “Sarcasm” sign or my tone is obvious enough?
Now a bit more serious.
Stalin surely IS a mass murderer, but not you’d better choose wiser whom to ask.
Putin is a total ////////, but he doesn’t need to endear them. Russia is still a member of “nuclear club” and US and EU won’t lift their asses even a full blown invasion starts! They may wage economical and informational war, but will never confront each other directly. They all prefer the world where big countries are free to do whatever they want to do to smaller once:(
I haven’t known about Henri Dunant. Thanks for info.
@ Arklyte:
Have you watched “enemy at the gates?” Also, Katyn didnt happen. (sarcasm overload)
HeavenlySatanic wrote:
Marakas wrote:
Constantine wrote:
Socialists will always claim that either:
(1) Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot were “in truth” no socialists 😉
(2) The death counts are all evil capitalist propaganda 😛
(3) Everything they did was just an “accident” or “dumb”, the starvations just “happened” to conveniently kill off certain ideological, social and ethnic groups *whistle*
@ Constantine:
Stalin not a mass murderer? He freaking well was! Check the purges, check the gulags, denunciations, Show Trials, he was a freaking psychopathic murderer!
@ Marcin Fat Emo:
The fact that in modern russian history gets distorted as a tool to raise pride and moral isn’t a reason to hate Russia, other countries do it as well, it’s normal.
Just think about the way japanese archaeologist used to date findings of the jomon culture (until they recently got caught).
If anything the retelling of Stalin time is confusion inducing, not hate or anger infusing. Why do they try to fabricate facts about a man whos crimes can still be remmebered by survivors? One would guess they’d chose a little an a little older historic figure.
@ boar:
Because it’s always easier to find an excuse for all your mistakes and terrible level of govermental corruption when you have an outsider scapegoat in which your population is ready to believe.
@ Marcin Fat Emo:
Good to know your trusted sources of historical insight:)
@ Arklyte:
My great grandfather was stationed on eastern border of poland. He said russians are worse than germans. Heres my bias. Russians hide facts, germans apologized for their crimes. They make series in the television howq finland attacked russia, and how polish are traitors 🙂
@ boar:
Its not confusing. My family dies in katyn and they blame everyone but themselves
I remember Semmelweiss – his work was actually under-appreciated during his lifetime quite strongly. In fact, his findings were disputed by the medical profession of the time and not really accepted until after his death, though this is all cited in the Wikipedia article on him. Today he’s widely remembered as a pioneer of the antiseptic policy we all take as standard practice, and those contemporaries look like sheer idiots.
There are other examples of where traditionally-accepted science has failed – take Fingerprints for instance. For a period of over sixty years, the system of anthropometrics developed by Alphonse Bertillon was regarded as the most efficient way to identify criminals. Then, in America, two men called William West were both assigned into the same prison – their Bertillon measurements an exact match. The two could have used each other as shaving mirrors, and were in no way related. Even Alphonse Bertillon, after being called in to personally examine both men, was perplexed. Meanwhile, unobserved, the system of fingerprinting had been used by a British banker in south-east Asia to ensure that account holders could not be defrauded.
demarion wrote:
Same proposition to you – try and check facts. Not in Wikipedia, though.
> Check the purges
You mean, like, when 30,000 were fired from the Army for alcoholism and incompetence?
> check the gulags
You mean, department of corrections (that’s what “gulag” acronym means), that in fact kept less prisoners and in better conditions than US prison system today?
> denunciations, Show Trials
Like McCarthy Era? Like Snowden, Manning etc?
You brainwashed sheeple inevitably demonstrate Orwellian double standards and Orwellian ignorance.
Marcin Fat Emo wrote:
Hollywood flicks based on recycled Nazi propaganda – that’s a truly awesome source of history education. Whe don’t you tell me everything about heroism of Pt. Ryan.
Katyn did happen – and ammo produced in Germany in 1941 was used there. Well, I guess, you actually do believe that Stalin had a time machine. You retarded kids will believe anything.
Smilley wrote:
Wow. Another genius that gets his facts from “Enemy at the gates” and “Calladoody”. Why don’t you tell me about Evil Jew Commissars?
@ Arklyte:
Smiley’s right in that Stalin was about as competent a military commander as Hitler though.
Which is to say: They both sucked.
That is not to say that the USSR didn’t have any good military leaders in WWII. It definitely did! Just that its overall leader was clearly not part of that group.
@boar: Many to most countries are distorting historic facts a little here and there to foster patriotic feelings. As long as they don’t do so in science and teaching, that’s okay. With Russia and Stalin there are currently many people worrying it is going heavily towards that. Which of course gives birth to counterreactions.
Hard to say from the distance whether the worries are well-founded or not, though.
@ Yoshi:
No, I love Japanese (I spent 6 years of my life learning about your country, and I spen a wonderful year there). Rabid nationalists I can’t really bear. (I paid a study visit to the Yasukuni museum, too. It was… enlightening)
Unfortunately most countries have them (mine included), and they’re always much louder than the sensible people, especially online.
@ Questiontroll:
Make a google search on the terms “Yasukuni shrine”, “Comfort women issue”, etc.
Although most of society does a lot to acknowledge the wartime events, a vocal right wing minority (including members of the government) is apparently still rather unhappy with that.
@ Constantine:
Just quickly leaving this here:
You are aware that official Russia has acknowledged the massacre of Katyn to have been doings of the Soviet, ordered by the politburo on an initiative by Stalin since 1990, right? As well as stating that the original examination reports from 1944 were a fake to shift the blame on the in this particular case actually innocent nazi regime. (Those reports is where the 1941 date you quote comes from, by the way.)
Gorbatschow was the first to acknowledge this. Both Putin and Medwedew have confirmed it, but declared that the modern Russian people must not be held responsible for the crimes of the Stalin regime. (I’m actually quoting from Putin in 2010 here.)
So, considering that every government involved, including both the former Soviet and todays Russian, is firmly declaring the “facts” you quote to be wrong and faked and that the Stalin government was fully responsible for the massacre of Katyn. What are you basing your counterarguments on, exactly?
The last panel looks like something out of “99 Luftballoons”.
Lukkai wrote:
Yes, I am aware. But you seem to be unaware that political blame games do not determine what’s true – only facts do.
I am also aware of the reasons behind it, unlike you. Just like the reasons behind initial Nazi stint.
Gorbatschow headed the massive smear campaign against the Communist Party in order to topple socialist regime and restore capitalism, so his gang of corrupt bureaucrats could privatize the country’s economy. Katyn was a minor part of this smear campaign. Putin and Medvedev are his successors.
The “documents” are obvious fakes. They are publicly available in Russia, but were removed from public access in Poland – fake’s too obvious.
Several court hearings – including European Court – ruled out that it was not the Soviets.
Anyway, one single fact makes it impossible for any sensible and honest person to shift the blame from the Nazis onto Stalin.
Some of the ammo (~30%) that was used to execute the Poles was produced in Germany in 1941 specifically for the death squads dispatched to occupied territories. It was not produced before; it was not yet even designed as of spring 1940.
So it could not ever be used in spring 1940 by NKVD. Unless you also claim that Stalin had a TARDIS stashed somewhere in his cellar.
@ Constantine:
So your whole argument boils down to “I know my facts are true and everyone involved saying they were completely fabricated is just proof of them lying.”
You’re not exactly convincing here. You more of look like a blinkered bullhead to be honest, since the only proof for your point you brought forth is taken from documents both experts and officials of all sides agree on to have been faked for propaganda reasons.
And as long as you don’t come up with something new that actually contributes to the discussion, that is all I have to say about it.
Constantine wrote:
As I said above: Socialists will always claim that either:
(1) Socialism has nothing to do with socialism, i. e. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot were “in truth” no socialists at all or it’s an evil conspiracy to make socialism look bad 😉
(2) The death counts are evil capitalist propaganda 😛
(3) If the death counts are true, they were just “accidents” or due to “dumbness”, the starvations were not engineered at all and just “happened” to conveniently kill off certain ideological, social and ethnic groups.
-> If you guys would spent half the time you invest into rewriting history to actually think & modify your ideology so that you don’t repeat your failures, you would already have your “workers paradise”.
Lukkai wrote:
And your whole argument is “Nazis never lie” and you have zero proof to support the Nazi version.
You neo-Nazis are very unoriginal.
What, you thick in the head?
The Nazi version you are backing is based on a single forged document, that was court-examined multiple times.
Arent wrote:
Joseph Goebbels stipend goes to you stat.
Arent wrote:
I probably should demonstrate how neo-Nazis lie on this fine example.
Typical Nazi claim: “Stalin engineered a famine in Ukraine to kill off Ukrainians and 7 million of them died”.
Okeydokey. Let’s look at the facts, shall we?
Famine in Ukraine did happen.
Then Stalin ordered huge imports of food into Ukraine from abroad: 200,000 tonnes of grain, 75,000 cows and 235,000 sheep. Apparently, Stalin wanted to overfeed Ukrainians to death!
Instead of dropping by 7 million, Ukraine’s population increased by 2 million during the famine. Wow, this fella Stalin really knew how to exterminate unwanted people!
Not only Stalin engineered a famine to kill Ukrainians in Ukraine, he also engineered it in Russia and in Kazakhstan – all to kill those pesky Ukrainians, obviously.
But that’s not all. His greatest feat – he engineered simultaneous famines in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary!
Wow, that was some cool Bolshevik Jew Wizardry – conjuring droughts and creating famines all over foreign capitalist countries!
When Nazis lie, they always rely on the ignorance of the people. Don’t be ignorant, don’t believe MSM mantras.
Constantine wrote:
Okay, one more response here, because if we were talking in person, I would be at your throat right now, considering A WHOLE QUARTER OF MY FAMILY LINE GOT EXTERMINATED IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS YOU PRICK!
Don’t you dare calling me a neo-nazi just because you’re too stupid to think up a real argument after your so called facts (the itsy bitsy tiny little bit you had) couldn’t hold up to reality.
Notice how the only one to always spit froth about “The nazi said! The nazi are saying! You are all nazis!” is you? How other people didn’t even argue with what the nazi were saying about Katyn, but what both western and eastern (socialist) Europe has found out and been saying about it either from the beginning or by now agreed upon? Not just the officials, but researchers, neutral or not, as well. Declaring the version you keep on citing to be faked, very obviously at that, and pure propaganda. And it only still lives on because some countries actually taught it for decades for, go figure, propaganda reasons.
My proof you ask? Search any twenty neutral experts on the matter and read what they have to say about it. Why twenty? So you’ve got some variety of sources and don’t just read from one or two lunatics.
I know letting go and accepting the truth about shameful things in your countries past is not easy. We had the same thing in my country a bit over a decade ago. But it’s right and it’s necessary.
And calling someone who disagrees with you a nazi for no good reason? Yeah, that’s lame, wrong and really really desperate. But congratulations. You publicly got a rise out of me. Not many people manage to do so.
Lukkai wrote:
You are very keen to defend Nazi propaganda for “not a Nazi”, Nazi drone.
There are only two options: you are either a mindless brainwashed ignoramus who is an unthinking Nazi supporter, or an actual Nazi.
Your “neutral researchers”, who copy-paste one another and whose “facts” inevitably can be traced back to Joseph Goebbels – the only thing you demonstrate by referencing them is that you are a lying Nazi, you hate “Russian untermensch”, and you certainly don’t care what’s true.
What fakes are you even talking about? 1943 Nazi fake? 1990 Gorbatchov fake? Sorry pal, both fakes support your fake version of history.
As for “reading”, I prefer to analyze actual facts. Nazis were sloppy, they photographed more than enough evidence implicating themselves and pre-exonerating USSR back in 1943.
Two questions, again:
– on what grounds other than 1943 Nazi propaganda stint you claim Russia’s responsibility for Katyn?
– did Stalin have a time machine, yes or no?
@ Rhys Lawson:
The William West case should be reexamined from a different angle.
The case sound very weird.
@ Yoshi:
I think he is refering to thoose Japanese which would see the simple mentioning of the Nanking-Massacre as an insult and not the japanese nationas a whole.
Similar to how some people from Turkey react to the genocide on the Armenians or the stupid ones still here in Germany.
That said, when i read that comment first I understood what was meant, bot tought it was badly worded and would lead to exactly your reaction
Ghengis Khan did what he had too,
Yes he killed millions,
Yes he destroyed those “that stood before him”
His people were only interested in trade.
In an nutshell, he made it possible for the West to trade with the East.
@ Yoshi:
I suppose the poster meant “good ridance of those who are willing to negate or ignore the massacre of Nanking”, which I hope is only done by old farts in Japan.
If you are not in that group, great. I love Japan, specially when I read about how nice the people are over there and their high cultural level, but when I read about the Nanking topic in Wikipedia I felt disgusted, specially when (again, acording to Wikipedia) some people from the recent Japanese government said that whole thing never happened and that it was an invention by the Chinese. The least these people can do is to accept their ancestors sins.
I actually had heard of Petrov before this comic… About two days ago, actually, thanks to this trivia newsletter I subscribe to XD
Constantine wrote:
No I think he means the real, historical ones, where Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was kept.
i … German dude helped Chinese during Nanking … i … i am moved, i swear if i ever get a chance i will risk life to help a german person, who knows maybe some other nice guy maybe born again some day when world takes same ugly turn? total respect to that german person
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